October 31, 2005

We’ve pontificated about this occasionally in Smoke Signals but it got under our skin again today. On one of the messageboards, there’s a post from a new video producer, asking whether he’s doing something wrong – because he’s had tons of visitors, tons of people downloading his sample clips (so many that he was forced to upgrade his hosting package), tons of compliments on the look of his stuff – but almost no sales.
The answer, as we’ve said so often before, is that he’s probably done nothing wrong. Our community is just one that (for the most part) takes and takes – but seldom gives (in the form of video purchases). It’s why most producers don’t provide free preview clips like they used to – and why some producers have gone out of business.
There are definitely some folks in our community who are regular, loyal purchasers of videos, and this isn’t meant in any way to ignore that fact. But the vast majority of people are surfing – just looking for free stuff. And when people ask “why don’t we see more variety in locations, outfits and plots?” – think about how much more it would cost a producer to step-up his production, when so few people buy videos in the first place.
Just as we know that our columns on the subject won’t create a stampede of smoking fetishists herding to video stores, all of a sudden saying “they’re right! if we don’t show our support by buying videos, the producers won’t have money to make more videos!” – we know this post won’t have much real-life effect, either. But maybe, just maybe, it’ll make a few people think.